Thread by @_HannahRitchie

For millennia, humans have used more and more land for agriculture, taking over wild habitats.

But, we are at a unique point in history: agricultural land use has peaked.

My latest article:
ourworldindata.org/peak-agricultu…

While agricultural land use has fallen, the amount of food we produce has continued to increase.

This is a decoupling we saw much earlier in today's rich countries, but is now true at the global level.

It's important to understand what's driving this change.

Global pasture land has peaked. Global cropland has not.

How can this be, when we produce more meat than ever?

I explain in the article 👇

2/

It should go without saying that land use has not peaked everywhere.

And croplands are still increasing in some regions.

That is why continuing to increase crop yields across the world is so critical if we're to prevent this trend from reversing.

3/

ourworldindata.org/africa-yields-…

For millennia we have taken more & more land from other species to produce food.

It doesn't have to be this way. We are in a unique position where we can be the first generation that gives this land back, while producing *more* food at the same time.

ourworldindata.org/peak-agricultu…

Thanks to the researchers on which this article is based.
@jrising, @ctaylor463, @erleellis, Kees Klein Goldewijk.

Their papers are below:
essd.copernicus.org/articles/9/927…

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…

science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…